My Grandfather Was A WHAT? !
by Lucillia
Summary: Harry rather complicates his life and unwittingly gets revenge on his relatives when he sends out a letter addressed to "A Blood Relative Who Isn't Petunia or Dudley" and a former follower of Grindelwald who'd just gotten out of prison and was looking for a place to stay receives it.
1. Chapter 1

There is a joke that goes something like this: Sometime around 1960 or so, a Sergeant was going down the line asking the new recruits if their fathers had served, and if so, where. Eventually, he reached a young man who mentioned that his father had been at Normandy. The Sergeant then asked what unit the man's father had been in, and the young man turned bright red and replied "The German army".

There was once a young man named Robert Evans who went out to seek his fortune. The first place he'd sought it was London, where he completely failed to find it. He did however find an opportunity to head to the Continent and seek it elsewhere. Eventually, he stopped searching for fame and riches and settled down in a place he could call home. When the Archduke Ferdinand was shot, Robert didn't have the money to get his family back to England and therefore stayed because he would not leave a single one of them behind. In 1921, he left a widow and several children whose ages ranged from six months to ten years behind in a small town East of Berlin.

Some seventy-three years had passed since that date. Some of the Evans family had made it back to England, but none of them before 1945 when their Fatherland had become a sinking ship, and they fleeing rats who'd used their half-English heritage to their advantage. The older man with the graying red hair that had become more gray than red in recent years and blue-green eyes who was striding away from a prison with a bus ticket and some money in his pocket had not been one of them.

This had been Hans Evans' third stay in prison since the war. He always promised to keep his nose clean, and always found himself right back in for another decade or so again. He could've escaped whenever he wanted to, but to go where? His family - what little of it was left in Germany - had no desire to see him, and had made that fact quite clear long ago. He wasn't welcome in what had been his world from the age of eleven either. Grindelwald's followers never were these days.

As he strode towards the bus-stop, trying to plan out his next move in a world where he was wandering aimlessly adrift, a beautiful white owl flew up to him. Having not received a letter in such a manner since they'd taken his wand from him at the end of the war, and not having anyone who would write to him anyways, he wondered why it could possibly be there. As he stood wondering, the glorious bird which was beginning to symbolize the magic that had been his birthright despite his origins in his mind imperiously held a leg out to him.

Almost hesitantly, he took the envelope that was tied to the bird's leg. Rather than having his name on it as he'd half hoped/expected, he'd found the letter addressed to "A blood relative who isn't Petunia or Dudley" in English. Simultaneously frowning and chuckling at the manner in which the letter had been addressed, he opened the envelope, pulled out the missive inside, and began to read.

Five minutes later, Hans Evans had something he hadn't had since Grindelwald had been defeated in 1945, a goal.

He was going to England.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been as Harry had been laying across his bed in his miniscule room reflecting on the fact that he had family he did not know about in the form of a Godfather who was on the lam that the idea had come to him. His parents and his Aunt hadn't sprung from the aether fully-formed, so what of his other family? He'd seen a great deal of relatives who may have been real or imaginary in the Mirror of Erised back during his First year. What had become of them? What of his grandparents' siblings? What of their children, and their children's children who should be his age?

Grabbing a quill, some ink, and a bit of parchment before he could start doubting and second-guessing himself, he wrote a letter to one of his theoretical relatives listing who he was, who his parents were, and the names of his Maternal grandparents seeing as he didn't know what his Paternal grandparents had been named (Something he'd have to ask Sirius about later). Once the letter was finished, he addressed it, tied it to Hedwig, and rather impulsively asked her to seek out a close relative from his mother's side of the family first before looking for his father's side.

Several days passed. Days which had started off with anticipation and excitement which steadily shaded towards disappointment as Harry began to despair of Hedwig ever finding a living relative of his and returning with a reply. Nobody had come to claim him before then, and there had to be a good reason for why that was.

Eventually, when he was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing Hedwig again before the Summer ended, there was a knock at the door.

* * *

When he had somewhere to be and something to do, Hans Evans had found it surprisingly easy to get his hands on a wand and get out of Germany. He'd fully expected the German Ministry to come calling with extreme prejudice after he'd nicked a wand from some ratlike tourist he'd run into in a pub, but considering the fact that it had been chaos after the War, he hadn't been all that highly ranked, and it had been the Americans who'd taken his wand and thrown him into prison the first time, it was entirely possible that he'd been entirely forgotten about. Some of the Grindelwalden had slipped back into their lives since with few being any the wiser after-all.

As he made his way to Little Whinging, going the Muggle way since he couldn't afford to be arrested by Wizards - especially with a stolen wand in his possession - he wondered what his niece's son would be like. Based on the letter, the boy sounded very much like his youngest brother, a simple, mostly kind-hearted, but brave boy. His youngest brother had been lost to him like all the rest long ago, and he seriously regretted the terms under which he and his siblings had parted.

He was one of two magicals amongst his siblings, his older sister being the other. All of their other siblings had ranged from being somewhat leery of their magic to being exceedingly jealous and somewhat spiteful of them for it. Despite this, he had been on speaking terms with the rest of the family until he'd accidentally let slip that his leader's goals and those of the Fuhrer didn't coincide. Finding out that their brother had A) bulshitted his way into Grindelwald's army by pretending that he was related to a nearly extinct British wizarding family named Evans and unrelated to his blonde sister who'd never made a secret of the fact that she was Muggleborn and B) joined an evil wizard who was planning to wrest the Reich away from them the minute Hitler succeeded had rather soured relations between him and the family.

After a great deal of wandering about a neighborhood that made him long for prison which wasn't anywhere near as rigidly uniform as this place, he finally found Privet Drive and made his way up it to a house which was making a great deal of effort to not stand out from the rest. He had ended up hesitating at the door for a moment, wavering over whether or not he should knock considering the fact that his family had told him to stay away, and eventually deciding to knock since he'd come all this way and the least he could do would be to greet his brother's magical grandchild who'd reached out.

The door was answered by a blonde woman who looked just enough like an Evans that he could tell she was related, though he did wonder exactly what his brother had married in order to produce a child who looked like a horse. The woman's eyes widened comically upon catching sight of him. He had some idea as to why, seeing as aside from the fact that his eyes were blue-green rather than green, he nearly looked like his younger brother's twin.

The woman's mouth opened and closed several times, yet no sound came out. "Wh-who...?" the woman managed eventually in a squeaky voice.

"You would be Petunia then?" he said, knowing full well that she was, since she couldn't be anyone else.

"I'm Petunia." the woman said, now on firmer ground.

"And, I'm your uncle Hans." he said, giving her his most disarming smile.

"I don't have an uncle Hans." Petunia said, her expression becoming hostile.

"I guess I was a subject that was too painful for my brother to bring up." he said sadly and almost wistfully, wishing that that had been the case, rather than the fact that his family was too angry with him to even mention him. "Considering what we'd been through, I would be very surprised if he said very much about his past."

Based on the woman's expression, she was likely imagining something far more heroic and a great deal more tragic than the truth. Giving him a very sad look, the woman stepped aside and allowed him into the house where his brother's magical grandson lived. As she led him into the sitting-room, she rather nervously offered him something to drink. After accepting her generous offer, he watched her disappear to the kitchen before turning towards the stairs where instincts that hadn't completely vanished over the last forty-nine years had told him that someone was trying to hide.

Looking up into the shadows, he caught sight of a small dark-haired figure that was swamped in clothing which was little more than rags. The figure, upon noticing that he'd been noticed, rapidly shot back down the upstairs hallway from whence it came. A moment later, his niece appeared with a small tray that had two cool drinks on it in deference to the Summer heat.

"Where have you been all this time, and why haven't I heard of you before?" his niece asked, cutting straight to the chase rather than trying to make small talk with a relative she'd never even heard of before he'd shown up on her porch several minutes earlier.

"The family and I had a falling out long ago, and I stayed in Germany when most of the others left. I lost track of your father after our former schoolteacher told me he moved to London." he said as soon as he was seated with a drink in hand. "I always thought it was funny, him moving to London like that, seeing as he'd bombed it."


	3. Chapter 3

Hans Albrecht Evans couldn't suppress the uprising of satisfaction he'd felt when he'd heard his niece's glass hit the carpeted floor of the sitting-room with enough force to shatter it. He knew he should've been playing nice in the vague hope of getting free room and board from a relative who would support him in his old age considering the fact that he was out of money, but something about this woman who was playing the stereotypical English Hausfrau had bothered him from the word go. Perhaps, it had been something about the wording of the Harry boy's letter. The boy who dressed in rags and didn't feature in a single one of the photographs that decorated his niece's tastefully decorated home.

"Black!" Petunia snarled. "I don't know what you're playing at you freak, but this prank has gone on long enough!"

"Black? Oh yes, Dark family, heavily into the Dark Arts. Grindelwald had tried to recruit them, but as you know, Evil doesn't necessarily equate to unpatriotic." he replied, a flash of anger having risen at the word "freak" even though it hadn't specifically been directed at him. He knew it just as easily could be so, considering the state of the magical child who was nearly not such any-longer that was living in the home.

"Stop playing games Black or I will call the police and have them throw you back in prison!" his niece shouted angrily, though there was a slightly fearful quaver in her voice.

"Call your police. I will wait patiently on the pavement outside until they arrive. Since I have served my time and committed no crimes since I have arrived in this country, there is nothing they can arrest me for, much less throw me back into prison for." he said coldly as he stood up, set his drink on an end table next to the chair in which he'd previously seated himself, and moved towards the door. "I am not this Black of whom you speak, and my telling you something that was clearly unpleasant to you about my brother doesn't make me so, nor does it make this a prank despite the fact that it amused me to drop that little bomb onto your ordered English lie. I will tell you here and now that my mother and my siblings did not treat me nearly as unpleasantly as you treat your nephew when it was discovered I was magical."

The look Petunia gave him as he made his way out the door was pure venom. He did sit himself on the pavement in front of his niece's home as soon as he was outside, but it was more to spite the girl than to wait for the arrival of a Constable that he seriously doubted she would call, seeing as making a scene like that would just bring unwanted attention to her. Attention that might not go away very quickly considering how boring this neighborhood looked, and how bored its inhabitants must be simply by living here. He wasn't just sitting on the pavement outside his niece's home to spite her however. Seeing as he wasn't very familiar with this neighborhood where every house and every street looked just like the rest, it was a good a place as any to wait for his other niece's son to make his excuses, leave the house, and perhaps lead him to a place where they could talk.

A few minutes after he sat himself down and politely nodded to a pair of curious onlookers who were pretending they weren't gawping, a shadow fell across him. Looking up, he found himself looking into his brother's eyes set in someone else's face.

"Are you really...?" his brother's grandson asked.

"If I were not related, that beautiful white bird of yours would not have handed me your letter." he replied to the boy who was still standing over him.

"Was my grandfather really a...a...?" the boy asked, not able to bring himself to say it aloud.

"He was in the Luftwaffe, serving his country the way many English served theirs. Our father may have been English, but we were born in Germany, and our mother was German. Being patriotic, it is only natural that my brothers answered the call when they were told the Fatherland needed them." he replied, giving his brother's grandson the kindest answer possible in regards to that matter. There had been a time when his family had believed, had gone to the rallies and so forth, they may have changed their minds about what was done, may have even regretted, since those days, but that didn't change what they had been.

"And what about you?" the boy asked, frowning as a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

"Being magical, I found myself being recruited by and following a greater leader than the Fuhrer." he replied. "And before you say anything, the man I followed wasn't that hypocrite Dumbledore."

"Greater...but Grindelwald..." the boy said, trying to process the answer he'd been given. He could easily guess that the next words that would've followed if the boy hadn't shut his mouth and started giving him a guarded look would've been "was evil".

He decided to put the boy straight.

"Great does not mean the same thing as Good. Grindelwald could lead entire armies, but there are few even amongst his own ranks who would call him a good man. Nobody is purely evil however, just as nobody is purely good. Do not fall into the trap of believing so, or one of the 'Good' people you know might surprise you one day by sticking a knife into your unguarded back." he said to the boy, wondering if he was warning the child about himself considering the fact that his intentions for coming hadn't entirely been pure. Not murderous, or evil mind you, but not entirely pure either. There had been some hopes of convincing the members of his brother's family who'd been searching for long-lost relatives to allow him to stay, and mooching off the family for an indefinite period of time which had been rather thoroughly dashed when he'd gotten a bead on his niece's character, and pegged her at "sour magic-hating bitch".

Yes, his hopes of mooching off of the relatives who hadn't bothered trying to get in touch until now had been thoroughly dashed. It wasn't like his brother's grandson had the money or a place to put him up "until he got back on his feet".

The boy who'd been staring at him and frowning as he tried to process what he'd said to him sat down next to him. Based on the distance separating them, it was clear that the boy didn't entirely trust him, but was willing to sit down next to him.

"So, aside from the whole...You know, what was my grandfather like?" the boy finally asked after another minute or so of tense silence.

"He was very brave for one..." he started as a police car pulled up much to his surprise and a Constable got out. The man looked at his brother's grandson in suspicion.

"If this is another Dursley call...At least five calls a month from the neighborhood kids stating that the Dursleys are abusing their nephew...You'd think they'd have grown tired of that old prank years ago." the Constable muttered darkly.

"I received a report of a disturbance in the area." the Constable said when he reached the pavement on which he and his brother's grandson were seated, still eying the boy suspiciously.

"That was a misunderstanding." he said, wondering at the actual history behind the Constable's earlier comments. "I decided to reply in person to a letter my brother's grandson sent to my hometown in Germany looking for relatives and ran afoul of my niece after I gave her some information she was not happy with. She was quite loud, and for some strange reason had convinced herself that I was a member of the Black family in disguise. How she became acquainted with the Blacks, considering the fact that she isn't the sort of company they keep, I do not know."

"Sirius Black's my Godfather." the boy who was and had been eying the Constable as if he were a zoo animal that had somehow ended up on a passenger train since the car had turned up had mumbled so low that it was possible that the Constable hadn't heard him.

"I see..." the Constable who was looking slightly discomfited, possibly because of all of the heads that had started popping up from behind bushes and fences and behind windows the moment he'd arrived said.

There was an ever-increasing crowd that grew by the minute, and all their attention was turned toward the trio on the pavement. The looks on the faces of the housewives that the heads belonged to were almost...predatory.

"Well, I can't exactly order you to go back to Germany, but I can advise you to avoid such 'misunderstandings' in the future, since another call to this location will result in your arrest for disturbing the peace. Good day." the Constable said before turning and practically fleeing back to his car.

"A Constable. An actual Police Constable." his brother's grandson breathed as his eyes tracked the car's progress up the street. "I haven't seen an actual Constable in Little Whinging in...I can't remember when."


End file.
